


These Shaking Hands They Are To Blame

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Ben Understands, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-30 19:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21145544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ben knows what nearly three decades of longing and loving looks like. He just hadn't known to look for it on anyone else, until it was too late.





	These Shaking Hands They Are To Blame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [olliebrobeck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliebrobeck/gifts).

> This was requested so here it is

Ben realizes in the quarry, when Richie breaks down. He breaks down so much harder than the rest of them, and he...

He doesn't joke, not even in the sad and broken way they try to. He's always tried for levity when times were darkest, and Ben thinks it's always been for the sake of the rest of the group. There's a lot he didn't notice, back when they were kids, that his newly returned memories render clear. The way Richie was always, _always_ so focused on the group. All his acting up and joking around, loud and crude as it may have been, it was to cheer them up, take their minds off their troubles, make them laugh, make them brave... he made them braver. He protected them, in his own way. It wasn't obvious, that's all. Another kind of boy might have placed himself in harm's way, thrown punches, made speeches to rally the troops... oh, they'd all protected each other in their own ways. Mike and Bill and Bev and even Ben himself, he thinks they were all straightforward enough about it, the way that they stood by each other and fought for each other. And Eddie, who could quite capably play doctor for them, who'd come to his rescue and who always worried about everyone's health. Stan and Richie, it was harder to see with those two, when they weren't all being pushed into action by forces outside their control, outside their usual... but even they had had their ways of protecting the others. He wishes he had recognized it better then.

He wishes he'd seen... he wishes he'd seen Richie. How alone he must have felt keeping that secret...

Ben had been able to confess. When Bev had moved away, he knows he'd told Richie and Stan, he think he might have also talked to Mike. Maybe by then he'd been able to admit to Bill, but he'd never wanted to say anything back when Bill had liked her, too. He'd loved them both, after all-- in very different ways, but his love for Bill was no less meaningful, he knows he never would have had it in him to spoil his friends' happiness. He'd pined silently for what felt like forever, and then he'd pined for her after she'd been gone, but at least he'd had the comfort of his friends. And then he'd pined even when he didn't know what it was his life was missing.

Richie had done all that, and he hadn't been able to tell anyone. Ben looks up at him, at how broken he looks, and feels his own heart break further. Where would he be, if he'd had to hide his feelings even more deeply, if he had to push Bev away when he only wanted to be able to be close to her-- where would he be if he'd lost her, and had to leave her down beneath that house?

They drag each other back to the townhouse eventually. They shower, they make plans, they nurse their wounds and get through the day... and little as Ben wants to leave Bev's side now, she understands when he tells her that evening that he needs to check on Richie.

"I don't mind staying up, too."

"No-- I think maybe we should take turns checking in on each other. I think... I don't want him to feel overwhelmed? I just want to know he's okay."

"All right. You make sure he's okay tonight and I'll make sure he gets breakfast in the morning." She leans up to kiss his cheek. "And... we'll work out the rest. Ben? How about you? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He brushes the hair back from her face, gentle, traces the curve of her cheek and drinking in the worry and the tenderness in her smile. Finds some strength in that. "I'm the man who got everything he ever wanted."

"Go." She nods, and gives him her room key. "Don't worry about waking me."

Richie is down in the bar, which doesn't surprise Ben at all-- what surprises him is that he hasn't drunken himself into a stupor. He seems surprisingly sober, considering. He has a drink in his hand, but he's more or less all there. Ben pours himself one, and takes the seat beside him, clinks their glasses together.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating... things?" Richie turns to him, bleary-eyed. Grief, not drink.

"Guess I don't feel like celebrating." He shrugs.

"C'mon, man. We defeated the monster, you got the girl, you... you should go. I'm not going to do anything stupid. I'm not even going to drink myself to death. You can celebrate."

"Richie... I've loved her for twenty-seven years. I loved her from the moment we met, even when I didn't know who she was. Twenty-seven years... that's a long time to love someone."

"So why are you down here with me?"

"Because you've loved Eddie even longer." Ben rests a hand on Richie's shoulder, careful. He expects a denial, a deflection, but Richie only sobs and leans in, and lets him offer comfort. "Hey, hey, it's okay... it's okay, let it out, I've got you."

"I just-- oh god-- I just--" Richie abandons the idea of actually drinking completely, turning and falling into Ben, clinging to him. Ben abandons his own drink, and wraps his arms around Richie, and lets him cry. "No one even knows about me, and I never got the chance to tell him... No one knows about me, I've-- fuck, I've literally never-- not with a guy, not like I wanted, and not-- shit, and every guy I've ever looked at has just been, has just been Eddie lite, man, they... But I've never let myself-- I've always-- It's what people would say, it's what people used to say. And I was always too chickenshit to own it, and then Eddie... Ben, the _day_ I met him, I knew. Not... not about love, I guess. I was still making gagging noises any time someone kissed in a movie. But I... I knew Eddie was special, that's all. And now he's gone, I..."

"Tell me about when you met." Ben takes his glasses, so they stop pressing into Richie's face. They're fogged up and wet with tears, and he sets them carefully on the bar beside his neglected drink. "If you ever told me back then, I don't remember."

"We probably never bothered with telling you how we met. Just said it was... fuck, I dunno, we... we just always knew each other. I don't remember a time before Eddie. We went to the same fucking preschool. We weren't friends then-- he was never there, he was always out sick and he never played outside, he sat inside and colored and shit or played with indoor toys, he wasn't allowed to go out. And then he was in the hospital for a while-- like, really in the hospital. His mom freaked out over him when his dad started to get sick, I think, and... and then he was sick, and then she never let him get better, but... I know when Bill introduced us to each other, I already knew him. And we went to the same church. And I... I don't know, I guess because he was always kind of set apart, I had this idea of him as special, maybe. And then I really knew him and I thought, you know, I was right. He really is. But I didn't know anything about love when I-- Shit, when we were in first grade. And it was the four of us, and we were playing house, which... Playing house sucks, was my opinion." Richie sniffs loudly, tries to smile only for it to fail, to crumple. "But we were missing a piece from one of the games and we finished a puzzle and we knew we weren't allowed to 'wear him out', so we had to pick a quiet game. And I didn't see the point in playing house. There were kids who fought over-- there was this little playhouse in the schoolyard, for the littler kids, and sometimes one of the girls would lay claim to it and they'd invite us, and I always said no because it's gross and stupid, and Stan always said no because the playhouse had spiders, and Bill sometimes said yes, and Eddie said no, you know, with the kids at school, because they'd always want to make him be the baby, so usually all of us did our own thing and sometimes it was the three of us without Bill-- shit, why am I remembering this? This is so stupid, I--"

"No, no, it's not." Ben promises, rubbing his back. "You've gone all this time not talking about it, you can say anything you want to about Eddie, or about yourself. I'm here to listen. Anything you need to get off your chest, I-- I love you, man, and... even if we hadn't gone through all the shit we've gone through together, you'd be one of the best friends I've ever had. I'm sorry I wasn't... I don't know, ready to be there for you."

"World wasn't ready, I wasn't ready. You were always... man, you were great. And if I was, like... less terrified, maybe, I... It's kind of hard to imagine little haystack being a dick about this. I just... living here, back then, I couldn't imagine anyone being cool. But you would have been."

"I like to think I would have."

"It was Saturday. First grade. Eddie wasn't allowed to go outside because it was supposed to rain, but she let him have us over, even though I don't think she wanted to, if we could play quietly indoors." Richie sobs again, but there's a little hint of a laugh in it this time. "Bill said we could play house, and Stanley would have gone along with anything Bill said, I think-- since there were no spiders, anyway. And Eddie said only if he didn't have to be the baby, shit, I must have been the worst, you know. Pinched his cheek and said he was as cute as a baby. Dumb... dumb shit like always. Well, it was probably the first time. Probably the first time I called him cute. Then I almost got in a fight with Bill over being the dad when Eddie said he'd be the mom. I mean, not a real fight, he didn't actually _care_ enough for it to be a real fight."

"Cute."

"Yeah, well." He lifts his head from Ben's shoulder, wiping at an eye.

"No, really. You thought it was a dumb game, and you made an exception because you wanted to do something with the boy you liked. Even before you cared about romance stuff. You were a sweet kid."

"Yeah, what happened to me?"

"You became a good man."

"Okay, you can't-- jeez, man, you can't just say this shit to a guy. Like, I'm not emotionally ready to fall in love with you right now." His voice cracks.

"You are, though. Or you wouldn't have stayed with us. Maybe it doesn't feel like it, because you've had to fight yourself even more than the rest of us have, but I believe that."

"We turned the kitchen table into a house. I kissed his cheek." And Richie's voice goes flat, so achingly flat, so broken-sounding, and so Ben pulls him in closer again, goes back to rubbing soothing circles on his back. "His mom came in then. Lectured us about why we should never do that, and Bill told her it was just we wanted to play a quiet game and we didn't have any girls who could play house with us, and I didn't mean anything by it, and she said she didn't want to have to talk to my parents at church... and I didn't, you know, I didn't know. I didn't know about love and I definitely didn't know about sex. But when Bill said I didn't mean anything, I knew it was a lie, and when she mentioned telling my parents I did something wrong, it... I never did it again. But sometimes I thought-- I always wished... I used to imagine I was brave enough to ask him if he remembered, later on. When I really knew what I-- why I did it, what my feelings meant even then. I'd lie there in the clubhouse when none of you guys were there and I'd close my eyes, and I'd imagine I was brave enough to ask him, and if he remembered that I kissed him. I used to imagine he would shove me and laugh and tell me it didn't count as a kiss. Sometimes I'd imagine that would be when I'd offer to do it for real, but I knew I was never going to... Do you want to know what's really sad?"

Everything about this is really sad, losing Eddie is the definition of really sad. Ben makes a soft noise to indicate he's listening, that Richie can say anything he wants here.

"I've never liked a kiss more than that one. And it's-- that makes it sound like I've never kissed anyone, or that the women I have kissed don't count, and it's not that. They counted, I mean, they weren't always-- I mean, they did. I've had kisses with women that were... nice. It's just... they never meant anything. Being with other people never _could_ mean anything. When I kissed them, all I could think about was that I hoped I was doing everything right so that they would think I was straight, even the best kisses I had, I wasn't free to enjoy them, really. When I kissed Eddie's cheek, the only thing I was thinking was that someday I wanted us to have a for real house, so that when I came home from work, Eddie would be there. Because the idea of not seeing him every day was unthinkable, and... oh, god, and it is, and I--"

"I know." Ben says, and then he regrets it, waits for Richie to push him away and tell him he can't know, he doesn't know. But Richie just weeps into his shoulder, and Ben thinks maybe Richie knows that he does, that if anyone can, he does. Sure, he hasn't suffered the death of his own lost-and-found love, but he knows what it is to go all those years with one half of your soul missing. He knows the pale shadow of what Richie is looking forward to with the rest of his life. "Oh, Rich, I know..."

"How do I go back to work after this? How am I supposed to pretend anything is funny when he's gone?"

"That I don't know. But... you can call me any time. For anything. You can even call for nothing, if you need to."

"I'm so afraid... I'm so afraid I'll leave and-- Ben, what if I forget about him? I know it hurts, but I can't-- I can't forget him. I'd stay in fucking Derry before that, I-- I can't forget him now, not now."

He pulls back, looks at Ben with wide, stricken eyes, big even without his glasses to magnify them, and Ben gently wipes at a tear rolling down his cheek.

"We won't. None of us will... not this time. We did it right."

"Doesn't feel right."

"No. Guess not."

"I left him down there. In the dark. With It. Ben, don't-- don't freak out on me, okay? I just-- And I swear, I'm not, I'm not going to, like... I just--"

"I know."

"I wish I was down there with him. I love him."

"I know." Ben takes Richie's hand. Lets him have a moment to gulp down air and fight the gag in the back of his throat, to deal with himself. With saying the words.

"I love him."

"Of course you do." He nods. "Of course you do. And he... I mean none of us can know everything about what Eddie felt, but we do know you were special, and... and all those years apart couldn't change it. He'd want you to be okay. He saved you. You'll always have the weight of missing him, but it won't always be like this. Rich... take some time, take care of yourself, mourn. The way he deserves to be mourned, the way no one else could mourn him. And then... go back to work. Write something. It doesn't even have to be funny, but it should be yours. I think... that's the best way you can honor him, and keep a piece of him alive through you."

"Yeah?"

"Well, that and washing your hands more often." Ben says. It's enough to startle a brief laugh out of Richie.

"I'll wash my hands so often people will think I have a _problem_. I'll write something." He sniffs, and claps Ben on the shoulder, before getting to his feet. "He'd probably want me to, like... fucking... sleep at night, too. He did save my life, I should try and... keep it a little nice."

"You should. He'd want that. I mean... he always wanted you to take better care of yourself. Hey-- Bev wants to have breakfast with you. I can come with, or it can be one-on-one if you want to talk to her like you talked to me, about Eddie. Or we can all go together, I guess, but... she just--"

"Wants to make sure I don't waste away. Sure. I-- I'll... yeah. Does she--?"

"We didn't talk about it. She might. She knows you took it harder than the rest of us, and she wants to look out for you."

"I'll tell her at breakfast, then, and... either it's old news or not. And... Bill, Mike, I'll find the time before we all go. I... Eddie... deserves that. For people to know he's... _loved_. Hey, Ben?"

"Yeah?" He rises as well.

"No survivor's guilt by proxy. Go. You and Bev... do your thing. I mean, yeah, if there was any justice in this world we'd all be having wild post-clown murder sex, I guess, but... this is the world we've got, and you should... you should hold onto her, man. You should... I mean I appreciate the talk, not to get sappy on you, but if you want to honor _me_, please, go. Name your firstborn after Eddie."

"We're not yet at the naming-our-firstborn stage." Ben chuckles, face going red.

"Well if you want to get to that stage, like, nine months from _tonight_, get to it." Richie slaps his shoulder again. "I'm going to be... alive, tomorrow. That's the best I can promise. But-- but he'd want you to be happy, you and Bev, and he'd want Mike to get the hell out of Derry, and he'd want Bill to be okay, and I'm not going to be okay, and that's fine, I'm a comedian so I'm actually very good at not being okay. I'm not going to be okay, but if you guys could all just be a little bit okay _for_ me, then I can live with that."

Ben hugs him. How could he not?

"We'll all be a little bit okay, then." He promises. And Richie is crying again, so Ben doesn't let go quite yet. "We'll carry you until you're ready to stand."


End file.
